Princeton, NJ, March
15, 2012–Paul Mealor, the Welsh composer whose work HRH Prince
William of Wales and Kate Middleton chose for their wedding in April 2011, will
visit Princeton Theological Seminary to speak on Tuesday, March 27 at 12:30
p.m. on the topic “Composing for Royalty.” The talk will take place on campus
in the Cooper Conference Room in the Erdman Center.

Mealor will also conduct the Seminary choir
at a liturgical service at 7:00 p.m. on Palm Sunday, April 1 in the Seminary’s
Miller Chapel to begin Holy Week. He will conduct the Seminary Choir in two of
his own compositions, including “Ubi Caritas et Amor,” the motet setting he
composed for the royal wedding.

Mealor, who has taught at the University
of Aberdeen since 2003 as professor of composition, has been described by The New York Times as “one of the most
important composers to have emerged in Welsh choral music.” He recently
composed “Wherever You Are,” a song based on letters written between wives and
partners of British troops and their husbands and partners on active duty in
Afghanistan, and sung by a military wives choir. The single was released in Britain
in December 2011 and was the Christmas number one hit on the UK Singles Chart. It
is now part of the album A Tender Light,
a collection of sacred choral anthems, which will be released in the United
States the week that Mealor will be at the Seminary.

Both the talk on March 27 and the service
on April 1 are open to the public free of charge. The service, Palms to
Passion, will be led by organist Ken Cowan, assistant professor of organ and
coordinator of organ and sacred music at Westminster Choir College, the
Seminary Choir, and the Reverend Janice Smith Ammon, minister of the chapel. It
is made possible in part through the Joe R. Engle Organ Endowment.

While in New Jersey, Mealor will also
participate in a concert with the Westminster Choir College Singers and the
Princeton University Choir on March 28, and with the Antioch Ensemble at St.
Paul’s Chapel (the chapel of Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City) on
March 30, where he will premier his new work “Drop, Drop Slow Tears.”

The Erdman Center houses the Seminary’s School of Christian Vocation and Mission and is located at 20 Library Place in Princeton. For more information on Mealor’s talk, please email [email protected], and for The Joe R. Engle Organ Concert, please call 609.497.7890.

Celebrating its Bicentennial in 2012,
Princeton is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than
500 students in six graduate degree programs.